Ripple (15 page)

It's a Tuesday night, and I hold Seth's hand as I ring Grandma Leighton's doorbell. This home has been in our family for three generations. We stare at the gold lion's-head knocker, waiting for the door to open.

Helena, Grandma Leighton's personal assistant, answers. “Hello, Tessa. It's lovely to see you.” Her thick blond hair is swept into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wears a yellow shirtdress and a polite smile.

“Hi, Helena.” She's been with Grandma Leighton since I was a little girl, but I don't know her well. I'm not here often. This house reminds me too much of my real father. How he took off for something different. Something better than me and Mom.

Seth and I step into the massive foyer of what can only be described as a suburban palace in the most expensive part of the county. I try not to wince at Grandma's preferred colors, seafoam green and so much salmony orange. There is tons of space in this house, and there are so many rooms with gilded frames and textured wallpaper and so many square feet with marble floors and hand-carved molding. Yet every time I come here, I feel sort of
claustrophobic and actually imagine a painting of myself in this gold, marble, and velvet box—so much fanciness, but everything is tight and pressing in on me. And the whole house smells like a potpourri factory.

“Whoa.” Seth takes it in.

“Yeah. Whoa,” I say flatly before swallowing hard.

Helena heads back toward the kitchen as Grandma Leighton gracefully steps down the enormous twist of staircase in front of us. She's as coifed as always in a pleated burgundy skirt and white silk blouse, her ever-present gold bangles clanking as her high heels hit each dark wooden stair coated in a red-carpeted runner.

“Welcome.” She levels a smile at us. “I was just finishing up some business in my study.” She leans in, shakes Seth's hand. “I'm so glad you both could come.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Seth says. I notice he's not at all uncomfortable—no tension in his posture, not at all out of place with the fanciness around us. He's just a little starstruck.

“Well,” Grandma Leighton says. “Why don't I check on the progress of dinner, and you can give your friend a tour of the house, Tessa.” Her expression fills with pride. “My grandfather Oswald Leighton built this home in 1936.” She looks around at the walls and the ceiling that stretch twenty-five feet into the air around her. “It might be the finest structure Leighton Custom Homes has ever built.”

“It's beautiful.” Seth nods.

“Thank you.” She gives a wave to the staircase. “Feel free to walk around. I'll meet you both in the dining room in about twenty minutes.”

Seth takes my hand and, like he lives here, leads me up the staircase that winds to a hallway with twelve different doors. He
opens the door to the first room—a guest bedroom quadruple the size of mine at home.

“This place is awesome,” he says. Then he turns, kisses me. “It's like the White House or something.” His lips find my neck, and he leans into me, walking me backward until we fall on the bed. His body pressing down on mine, he asks, “Are you supposed to inherit all of this?”

I stare past him, at the fleur-de-lis pattern covering the bed's canopy. I guess lots of people would love to get a house like this. But all I can think about are the woods that run along the side of my house in Pineville. The rooms I made of vines. The carpets of leaves. The rich mustiness of dark soil. And the air. So much air for me to breathe.

“Come on,” I tell Seth, pushing him up. “Let's finish the tour.” We make our way down the second-floor hall, looking into each impressive room. Almost to the end, he finds an arrangement of family photos on the wall. In one, Grandma Leighton stands in her wedding dress, alone. Aside from my DNA, no trace of her ex-husband—my grandfather, who died of pneumonia a decade after she divorced him—is in this house. Another shows the friendly face of my great-grandmother in a high-backed chair. And there's Grandma Leighton as a young girl, formally posed next to her father, his suit and face tight and dark. There's a thick empty space between them.

“Who're these people?” He points at a picture of my real dad and his perfect blond wife and sun-kissed, magazine-worthy children. His new kids are half my age, private-schooled, heads raised and smiles facing forward.

“That's my biological father,” I say.

He nods. “Do you see him often?”

“I used to.” When I was younger and I'd meet him here for holidays. But he got married and his visits slowed. Until he stopped coming completely. “I haven't seen him in two years.”

“Tessa?” Grandma Leighton interrupts. She's standing at the top of the stairs. She'd been watching us from down the hallway. “I can show you around the first floor,” she says to Seth.

“Go ahead,” I say to him. “I'll be down in a minute.”

He strides to Grandma Leighton, who gives me one more flat glance as I stand in front of my father's photo.

I stare for another minute at my father, who looks back, frozen and perpetually happy. He is so handsome. Tall and dark-haired and poised. He'd bring me gifts—TVs and computers and expensive jackets—when he breezed into town. I remember he smelled like Irish Spring soap, and when he still held my hand, his was huge over mine. I used to think he was a giant. A prince. And like I'm a whiny five-year-old, I wonder, why not me? Why did he have to go look for something more? What was it about me—just a baby when he left, a little girl when he was still single—that wasn't enough?

And like every time I'm here, I feel empty and small. This house bears down on me, the hallway like a windowless cell. Tears start to fall.

I head to the nearest door to find a tissue. But it opens to a storage room with stacked furniture. Before I close the door, I spy a flash of color against one wall. It's a bunch of framed pictures and drawing pads. I bend down to riffle through the pictures. They're done in pencil and watercolor, painted women in elaborate dresses in what looks like fifties style. The strapless gowns cinch tight at the waist, and the material folds and flutters all the way to the ground. Each dress is in a different color. Some are beaded, some
bustled, one has a giant bow spilling down the back. But the faces and the bodies of these women are perfect, exquisite, the emotion in their expressions showing them caught in a moment of thought and feeling that makes each picture a real piece of art. And Spencer Diane Leighton's signature is on every one.

Shaking my head in total disbelief, I grab my cell, angle the drawings to get the best photograph of each one so I can look at them more later. If these are really her paintings, I don't understand why she stopped, but it instantly gives me new hope that maybe I can find a way off the business-school track she's stuck me on.

•   •   •

On the ride home from Grandma Leighton's, I can't stop thinking about the last thing my grandmother said before we left. “You're older now, Tessa. You've matured. I would like to propose that you come live here, in the Leighton family home.” My insides chilled instantly. “It would give you the chance to start interning at LCH right away, and you could drive to school from here so you finish at Pineville High. Or I could have a car drive you every morning.”

“Um. Well—” There was nothing I could say. Because I saw what was happening. Her allegiance is to me. Not my parents. Not even Willow, no matter how nice she is to her. She loathes my stepdad. Could take or leave my mom. If I move in, what will stop her from selling my parents' home out from under them?

“Think about it,” she'd said before pressing her cold cheek to mine in an air kiss.

I shake away how her offer makes me cringe inside and turn to Seth driving my car. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Yeah. No problem.” He glances at me, looking totally handsome and at ease. “It was cool hearing her talk about her company.”

“For sure,” I tell him. And wonder again about her art. If she abandoned it because she had to, or if business was as much a love for her as watercolors and paintbrushes. Maybe she thinks I have both, too. That it would be easy to shove all my creativity into a storage room to walk into a boardroom.

Seth kisses me a million times when I get to his house to drop him off. He holds my face in his hands and just looks at me, all intense, his thumb strumming my cheekbone as if I were an instrument. But I just want tonight to be over.

When I pull into my dark driveway, I catch a flash of orange out of the corner of my eye. Jack's car sits in front of the rental house next door.
WTF?
I pull partway into my drive, then stalk my way past Jack's car and up the porch. Whatever friend Jack has living here, I can't have him hanging here all the time.

I bang hard against the door. Probably not the best first impression to make with the new neighbors. When the door opens, an older woman stands there. Instantly, her eyebrows rise above her glazed eyes and her mouth opens, like she's afraid of me.

I tone down my anger. Try to be pleasant. I mean, she's not the one I'm mad at. “Hi. Is Jack Dalton here?”

“Why? What do you want?” she asks, suspicious. Her waiflike body curls into itself, concave and quivering. Her hands ball into fists and push into her chest.

“I . . . I just want to talk to him.”

“I've got it, Mom.” Jack's voice connected to the word
mom
totally confuses me.

Jack comes up behind the woman, eases her out of the doorway with a gentle look and a firm grip on her small shoulders. She moves away, back into the house.

“Mom?” I ask him.

He turns back to me. “Don't see me enough at our lockers, Tessa?”

“Mom?” I ask again. My muscles tense. “You live here?” I feel the heavy impulse to strangle him.

“I can tell. You missed me.” He smiles that charming Jack Dalton smile.

I swallow a growl. “You live here. And you knew I lived next door.” I shake my head. “You're such a snake, Jack.”

“Tell her to go away, Jackie.” His mom's shaky voice calls from another room. “
Tell her,
” she pleads.

“Go ahead, Jack.” I step closer. His expression is guarded. “Tell me to go away. You've already had practice doing that recently.”

He glances back at his mom. Then to me again. He opens his mouth, the words perched there. But the next sound I hear is not Jack's voice.

It's Willow's.

And she's screaming, more terrified than I've ever heard her.

•   •   •

I race from Jack's doorstep to see Willow in front of our house, arms flailing. “Dad, get out!” she yells.

I bound through my front yard, dodging fallen branches and pushing quickly through windblown piles of leaves.

My mom flies through the front door in her thin white nightgown. She grabs my sister's shoulders. “Will, it's okay. He'll be okay.”

Willow shivers in her T-shirt and capri pants.

“What's happening?” I pull off my jacket and put it around Willow.

“There's a fire in the woodstove's chimney. It's burning up the
creosote in there,” Mom says, shivering, but I have nothing but my arms to cover her with. I hold her, peer into the doorway.

My stepdad stands near the woodstove wearing the heavy fireproof mitts he always keeps in the bin next to it. The last time I saw him wear them, I was five. Willow was a baby. And the black circular stovepipe pushing through the ceiling from this same stove was turning the same terrifying orange it is now.

Dark paint peels like dead skin from the pipe, exposing raw, heated metal underneath, throbbing in different shades of red, like an underlayer of coursing tissue.

“Stay out there,” my stepdad barks from inside. He's closed the stove's doors to starve the fire of oxygen, and he's moved our worn living room furniture as far from the stove as he can. We all watch the chimney pipe, hoping it contains the blaze.

I think of all the times I've truly hated this house. The tension. The yelling. How it feels like my grandmother's hand is pressing down on it, ready to crush it to bits or pull it away from us to spite my parents. But right now, watching it burn and after just being in the Leighton house that seems nothing like a home, I want to run into my room, protect it, collect my worn aqua comforter and frayed rug, all the art stacked inside. All of a sudden, I love how the tiny corners have listened to my secrets and watched me bitch and cry. That space is mine. The growing fear of losing it makes me cling super-hard to Mom.

But my stepdad pulls off a glove, reaches into his shirt pocket, and grips and lights a cigarette, his tiny flame challenging the wild one in the stove. And somehow, I know he's got this under control.

A shriek from the front yard turns my attention from the orange glow radiating from my house. I strain to see Jack in the
dark, his mother next to him halfway down my yard, her arms flapping in what? Terror? Excitement? She points at me, at my house, at the way it burns and flickers from the inside. Jack restrains her, tries to calm her.

My teeth start to chatter, and the noise cuts into all the other sounds around me. But I swear Jack's mom is yelling, “Hell! It's hell!” over and over. And her pointed finger aims at my home. At my mom and sister. And me.

During my next scheduled shift at the hospital on Friday night, Ms. Norbrett hauled me aside to let me know my work for Worton County was “first rate and efficient.” It was a nice ego boost. Then, as a bonus, I got to hang with Emma for part of the time. I “accidentally” broke her hospital-bed remote so I had to fix it for her.

We don't talk about anything serious whenever I tinker in her room, which I've done during all three of the shifts I've had so far. She never brings up the night of the accident. I think it freaks her out thinking about it. Mostly, she giggles at practically everything I say, and I feel like she sees me as entertainment. Kind of like television. I'm good with that.

Now, with my hospital shift over, I'm driving to a house party to meet Sam and Carver in a ritzy part of town. House parties are usually not my scene since I don't drink or use. But the guys mentioned to some kid and his band that I play some rock songs on my violin, and the band wants me to jump in on a couple numbers with my strings and bow. And as much as I dig Ben and the old folks at the assisted living home, it'll be nice to play less oldies
and more modern rock on my violin. I've even brought along some headphones to help me wire up and electrify the instrument for tonight. I've stuck to VP Barnes's deal and haven't harassed, graffitied, or defiled anyone or anything for a week. My days have been crammed with school, tutoring, or work at the car wash or hospital. So I'm way overdue for a little stress reliever.

I'm also hoping Tessa is there tonight. Just to kind of clear up some things between us. It's been three days since the fire at Tessa's house, and she still hasn't said a word to me. Every time I meet her at our lockers, I try to talk to her. “How was fifth hour?” “Wasn't the cafeteria meat loaf looking especially mysterious today?” “Is that a new plain white T-shirt you have on?” She never answers. And never makes eye contact. She just slams her locker door and stalks away.

I'm sure she's still mad about me not telling her I was her neighbor and also for stopping that kiss. But I hope she's not avoiding me for what she saw my mom do the night of the fire. I tried to keep Mom from running over there and yelling. But she slipped past me. And having Tessa and her family watch Mom freak out felt a little like someone kicking me in the nuts—embarrassing
and
painful. Mom can't help losing it sometimes, but it's awkward to watch.

It also sucks that Mom has been a hundred times worse since the fire. She thought Tessa's stepdad was kind of evil and just watching us before, but now she's sure there's an open door to hell in Tessa's home and her stepdad came right up through it. She's sure he's a demon or somehow being guided by the devil. And she's sure his next victims will be her and me.

Twisted up and anxious about it, I checked in at home before heading to tonight's party. But Mom was sound asleep, setting my
worry level at a comfortable low and giving me the chance to relax just a little.

By the time I get to the party around 12:30 a.m., it's out of control. The band inside is guitar-heavy and loud, the lead singer raspy with a punk-rock snarl. They're damn good.

I hug the violin case under my arm and enter the massive front doors to the upscale home. I don't know who lives here, but one second inside and I know they'll have a hell of a cleanup job. It smells like someone doused blankets with beer and then threw them in a sauna. People are everywhere, laughing, yelling, eyes glazy and feet tripping. They clog the stairway to the second floor and bend over the railing of an upstairs loft.

I decide to head straight to where the band is set up in the family room. I spy Sam's tall form and cropped light brown hair. He's part of the thick half-moon of people listening and swaying to the music. Tessa's friend from the bleachers is with him, talking into his ear. Uncontrollably, I find myself looking for Tessa.

Sam spots me and waves me over. “Glad you could make it, dude!” he shouts over the Green Day song being belted out.

I dab at the perspiration forming on my forehead. “This is a serious shindig.”

Sam's tanned cheeks are red from the thick heat, and sweat soaks through his armpits. “It's a huge party, for sure.” He points at the stage area, which is just a space on the marble floor where all the white leather furniture has been pushed away. “Lots of people came to hear the band. They're good. Don't you think?”

I size it up. The lead singer, two guitar players, a drummer. That's it. And they wear jeans or cutoffs with no shirts. All the band members have a black-and-white design around their belly
buttons and each guy's is different—a diamond, a flower, a square, an octagon.

I pat my violin. “They're good, but I could make them better.”

Sam laughs. “You make most things better, Jack.” His comment weirdly warms me. Sam might actually be becoming less of an
assigned friend
and more of an actual confidant.

Sam points at the dark-haired girl standing next to him. “Jack Dalton, this is Juliette Morris. Pineville High's resident overachiever.” She gives him a playful glare.

I nod at her.

“Hey there,” she yells to me over the music, then sips from her plastic cup of beer.

I point at the band members. “What's with the belly art?”

“The band's name is Navel Strange,” Sam shouts. “They have that made-up-like-KISS thing going but for their navels instead of their faces.”

I nod. Decide I can work with that. I set the headphones and my violin down between my feet so no one kicks or steps on them. I peel off my jacket, followed by my T-shirt. Some drunk girls next to us whistle and whoop. I ignore them.

Juliette stares firmly at my bare chest. “So Tessa tells me you actually live right next door to her. And Tess won't really admit it, but I'm pretty sure she thinks”—the song ends, the music stops, but Juliette keeps yelling—“you're super-hot.” She looks around as a bunch of people stare and laugh. “Oh, fuck sticks.” She shakes her head.

Sam chuckles, amused.

“Well, I'm a total girl magnet,” I say, lifting an eyebrow. “So Tessa's probably feeling my strong force.”

Sam chuckles again.

Juliette focuses her green eyes on me. “Okay. I probably shouldn't have said anything. But since a little of this”—she holds up her plastic beer cup—“has made me open my big mouth and, yes, I think she might be sort of into you, I need you to listen.”

She stands tall to what must be a little over five feet. But with how aggressive her expression just got, it seems like she's a foot taller than that. With her free hand, she secures her hair behind each ear. “I'm Tessa's best friend, and I see the way you look at her. I know you're interested. But the last thing Tessa needs is some prick who only cares about hacking the system, effing with locker assignments, and screwing with her. So if that's your game, back the hell off right now.”

Juliette leans past Sam and gives me a nice, long, threatening glare.

“Don't mind her,” Sam says, pushing Juliette slowly away from me. “She's only standing here because she's a little drunk. Otherwise, she doesn't usually waste her precious, world-changing time on me.”

“That's true.” Juliette bumps Sam's arm with her shoulder. “He's an asshole who pisses away every ounce of his potential. He's just as smart as me,
and
his mom's the mayor. The student council could use him as a figurehead. We could get a million more things done if he were on board with us. But he's too busy following you around to care about community service and bettering his fellow man.”

Sam casts me a tight smile. “So I ask you, Fellow Man, isn't she a treat?”

I size Juliette up. Her cropped dark hair. Her intense green eyes. Her shoulders thrown back as confidence oozes from her smooth olive-colored skin.

“She's a good friend,” I say.

Juliette looks confused, as if she'd been expecting me to bitch right back at her. But I respect her loyalty to Tessa. And with Tessa's little tangle on Cornish Street, it's nice to know someone's looking out for her. I think I might like to be that person. But Tessa's trust in me is long gone, and she still has a boyfriend who, I'm sure, wouldn't love me spending tons of time with her.

With the band on a break, the singer of Navel Strange heads my way. His wavy brown hair is pulled loosely back in a bun, and he sports a six-inch goatee that ends in a fine point.

Sam pats him on his sweaty bare back as he stands next to us. “Jack, this is Pete Morov, lead singer extraordinaire.”

“Jack.” Pete nods. “The guys and I are going to slam down a few libations and then get back to jamming. You up for joining us?”

“I dressed for it.” I unfurl my arms to display my naked upper body.

Pete laughs, then points to a table shoved against a wall. “There's some body paint over there. Why don't you pick a fresh shape and get into Navel Strange character.”

“Sounds good.”

Pete weaves his way through the crowd, to the keg in the kitchen to join his bandmates. My eyes catch on Pineville's quarterback leaning against the counter there, talking to a petite, overly smiley girl with short dark hair and too much makeup on. I recognize her as one of the cheerleaders who sits with the football players at lunch.

I scan for Tessa. Search the study, where a bunch of people are crowded around a desk playing cards, doing shots, and snorting lines of coke. She's not there or in the living room. Not on the stairs or in the loft.

Then I see her, coming out of what must be the bathroom, rubbing her hands together like she just washed them. She heads toward the quarterback but stops, watching him talk to the cheerleader. She watches them laugh together.

She seems uncertain before looking around to find Juliette waving at her. Relieved, she glides toward us, and just the way she moves through the partyers is enough to bring on that pull in my gut and lower. She comes to stand next to Sam and Juliette, right in front of me. Her full, curvy lips are painted with pink gloss, and her eyelids above her deep blue eyes are coated in a shimmery beige. But she's not overly done up. Just beautiful.

She glances at my bare chest. “Why are you half naked?” Her eyes squint with suspicion.

“It just felt right,” I say.

For several beats, she stares at my chest and stomach. She blushes before she looks away.

Juliette throws her arms around Tessa. “Having fun?”

Tessa half nods. Her glance darts back to the quarterback and the girl.

“So, Tessa,” I say, “Juliette tells me you two are good friends.”

Tessa casts an annoyed look at Juliette, who shrugs. “I was just telling him you are the bestiest friend ever.” She sucks at her beer, looking with caution at Tessa over the cup. “And I just, well, I said—”

“She told me not to screw with you and to play nicely.” I hold in a smile as Tessa's agitation grows.

Juliette clutches her beer harder. “It's just that, well, everything's a little rough for you right now, Tess. I mean, with your grandma and you wanting to go to art school.”

“Art school?” I ask.

Juliette bites her lip, looking totally busted.

Tessa points at her with a scowl. “You, bestie, shouldn't drink. It makes you way too honest.”

“So you're a
really
good artist, then?” I ask.

She turns her agitation on me. “I'm not talking to you. But if I were, I'd tell you that I'm a pretty decent artist.”

“Really?” I challenge. “I don't know about that. Let's see if you can prove it.” Before she can say anything, I swipe up my violin and headphones, grab her elbow, and weave us through the crowd.

“Wait. What are you doing?” she asks.

I pull her over to the table with the body paint. “Ever done belly-button art?”

“Ew.” Her face wrinkles.

I bust out a laugh. “Da Vinci would argue it's not as glorifying as oil painting on canvas. But if I'm going to play with Navel Strange, I've got to get professional about it.” I push a black paint crayon into her hand, then open my arms to give her clear access to my abdomen. “So pretend I'm canvas.”

She looks at my stomach. “I— But— No. I can't.”

“Sure you can,” I tell her. “It's just paint. It'll wash off.”

“That's not what I mean. I'm seriously mad at you.”

I drop my arms and look at her, concerned. “You know, this could get really ugly. Because if you won't get near me because you're mad”—I shake my head, eyebrows raised—“then that means I have to get Sam to do this, and I'll end up with a cockeyed bunny rabbit surrounding my belly button.”

She releases a sigh. “Honestly, Jack. Why didn't you tell me you lived next door?”

I think about my mom, my house, the secrets I try to hide there. Finally, I say, “I guess that I know I sort of made a poor first
impression at the football game and everywhere else. And I kind of wanted to convince you I was an upstanding, quality individual before I walked up and said, ‘Howdy, neighbor.'”

“Whatever,” she says dismissively. “You should have just come right out and said, ‘By the way, I live next door.'”

“I know.” I nod. “But then there was that whole thing at the cemetery, and then you weren't talking to me.”

She shifts, uncomfortable. I lean toward her so she can hear me through the heat and the noise around us. “I'm sorry about leading you on and then pushing you away, Tessa. I guess—” I shrug. “I really wanted to kiss you. I mean,
really.
But you have a boyfriend. You
chose
him, and as long as you're with him, I'm not going to compete for you.”

She winces. Then nods.

And since I'm on this honesty streak, I say, “So after I'd made all these bad impressions, I guess I figured inviting you to my house for, like, a soda or to play a video game or even to chat, you know, with my mom—” I swallow, and her eyes hold mine for a long moment. “I sort of didn't think that was going to make me look any more upstanding. Or quality.” My voice drops off.